hope

So these attorneys are freezing assets and questioning people...great...or not great...I don't know..

1. what percentage of what is recovered is going to this Cara Alday?

2. Who hired this person and who payed for the attorney's that forced the bankruptcy? Are they getting a percentag?

3. If I send in my documents to be on the creditior list am I automatically signing over a percentage to these folks...what is that percentage?

4. What rights to we have to hear the transcripts from these "investigations and quetionings".

Does anyone know these answers or where to get them?

hope

sorry to repeat but earlier post did not show up until i reposted a replacement post.

hope

As I understand it regarding the employee's of the Ponzi Scheme "the Forex Project" Regarding them having to return wages paid...is that the courts will look at what they were making prior to working for the ponzi scheme job. It will take into account what there job duties were, what there education level is and skills.

It will then calculate what a going wage would have been for the work...and any excess to that amount is what will need to be returned. That's my understanding. (of course the gifts, cars, jewlry, cash gifts, etc...must be returned and are a separate issue as to what may have been paid as wages)

However, I guess if they do not meet the "good faith" that a reasonable person would have known it was a scheme...either at the beginning or sometime after getting involved...then all bets are off and not only are the held accountable for all monies...but also criminally involved.

Perhaps not a clear cut as all that but that's the gist of what I understand.

Does anyone understand this stuff differently...thanks

hope

11 USC 548 - Sec. 548. Fraudulent transfers and obligations
11 USC - U.S. Code - Title 11: Bankruptcy (January 2004)


Permanent Link: 11 USC 548 - U.S. Code - Title 11: Bankruptcy - 11 USC 548 - Sec. 548. Fraudulent transfers and obligations - vLex

Id. vLex: VLEX-WNRG057

user101

I've asked a couple of these questions to the Trustee - Grey Steed and here are his responses. I recommend contacting him with any other questions, he was great at responding.

Q: I have a question about how the bankruptcy works. If you obtain a portion of his assets to pay creditors, how is the money split. I'm sure all the money won't be recovered so how is it divided among the creditors? For instance, would everyone get a % based on the amount to distribute?

A: All the money is pooled -- priority claims such as the IRS are paid first along with administrative claims like my fee. The remaining amount is divided by the total dollar amount of the claims. therefore if your claim is 50,000 whatever that percentage is your payment would be twice a person with a 25,000 claim

Q: In reality, how long do you think this case will take to resolve? Do you think months or more likely years?

A: Its too early -- even if it takes 3 years which is feasible I will seek the courts permission to do an interim distribution. The risk there is the IRS could come in with a priority claim. I suspect without knowing that Mr Rivas failed to pay taxes on the money he stole

Racer

The other monkey wrench with employees is that it sounds like many if not all weren't actually employees but subcontractors.

hope

what some other ponzi scheme ...friends, associates, "brokers", girlfrieds...etc received on convictions....

**Turn Him in Now....Not to be rude to the innocent...but are some of you guys/gals...just crazy***


RAPHAEL LEVY'S SECOND MAJOR FINANCIAL CRIME CONVICTION RECALLS HIS ROLE IN PREVIOUS $117 MILLION VIATICALS SCAM
By Stephanie Ayres
December 2004
Miami, Florida
Raphael Raymond Levy, his daughter Ronalee Levy Orlick, and two associates were convicted December 1 in federal court in Miami in a case relating to Levy's operation between 1996 and 1999 of an entity called US Capital Funding Inc., which raised some $48 million from investors through a nationwide network of insurance agents selling unregistered promissory notes.

Federal indictments were forthcoming in South Florida against Frederick Brandau, his brother Harvey Brandau, Levy, Pierce, and two attorneys who had helped the FinFed group launder investor funds-- Garland Hogan, FinFed's "in-house" attorney, and Jeffrey Paine, a West Palm Beach lawyer who served as "escrow agent" for receipt of investor money through FinFed and American Benefits.

As the cases proceeded against these defendants, Raphael Levy and his wife, Roseann M. Levy, allegedly attempted to conceal assets they had acquired with proceeds of the fraudulent scheme by taking out a mortgage loan of over $650,000 against their Delray Beach house purchased with proceeds of the fraudulent scheme. The Levys then allegedly distributed this money to bank accounts in the US and Mexico that they controlled.

When these actions were discovered, the Levys were charged with conspiracy in a separate federal indictment in November 2003.

The FinFed and American Benefits defendants charged in the federal cases were all convicted on charges of conspiracy, fraud, and/or money laundering:

Frederick Brandau: the apparent ringleader of the scheme, convicted on 43 counts and sentenced to 55 years in prison. His sentence was upheld on appeal by the US Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals on July 23, 2002.

Raphael Raymond Levy: sentenced to 14 years after pleading guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering. His sentence was also upheld by the Eleventh Circui, which ruled on June 23, 2004 that Levy had not been deprived of due process of law by the District Court which had allowed several FinFed/American Benefits victims to testify at his sentencing hearing. His 14-year sentence exceeded the maximum of his plea bargain. Enhancements were reportedly allowed because he was found to be a principal of the scheme, and because he had targeted elderly investors.

Gary Pierce: FinFed associate with a prior conviction for armored car robbery, served as a front for Brandau and Levy in laundering investor money through a Bahamas corporation, sentenced on April 4, 2002 to 240 months in prison and $31,093,005 restitution, three years supervised release and payment of a $400 special assessment. Pierce was convicted of mail fraud, money laundering, and conspiracy.

CSI Ag: Pierce's Bahamas corporation, sentenced on September 13, 2001 to five years probation, forfeiture of real estate, motor vehicles, and the contents of three Bahamas bank accounts. The corporation was convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to launder money. It was ordered to pay $122,527,160 of restitution and a special assessment of $800.

Cheryl Poindexter: Gary Pierce's girlfriend, sentenced to one year and one day in prison, $759,000 restitution, despite her plea to the judge for leniency on the grounds that she had been abused by Pierce. Poindexter was found to have helped Pierce secretly transfer money from the Bahamas accounts to his lawyer after she had been warned by prosecutors against continuing to work with Pierce.

Jeffrey Paine: a lawyer in West Palm Beach who in his capacity as "escrow agent" received about $90 million of FinFed/American Benefits investor money which he passed on to Brandau and Levy, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and wire fraud, sentenced to five years prison and restitution.

Garland Hogan: corporate attorney for FinFed, who allegedly signed hundreds of fake insurance policy assignments, convicted in July 2001 on 10 counts of mail fraud, three counts of money laundering, sentenced to 324 months in prison, over $108 million of restitution, three years of supervised release, and payment of a $1,200 special assessment.

Harvey Brandau: brother of ringleader Frederick Brandau, pleaded guilty in March 2001 to conspiracy to launder investor funds for trying to hide and sell some three dozen luxury and sports cars which had been acquired with proceeds of the fraud scheme, sentenced on August 28, 2001 to 15 months prison, three years supervised release, payment of over $858,000 restitution, a $5,000 fine, and a $100 special assessment.

Ivan Burgos: FinFed associate, sentenced on October 8, 2001 to 37 months in prison, three years supervised release, payment of $1,757,835 restitution, a $10,000 fine, and $100 special assessment, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to engage in money laundering.

The FinFed/American Benefits scam also spawned lawsuits and administrative actions by Florida and other states. The Florida Comptroller's office informed FinFed investors in a June 2001 letter that the state had filed administrative complaints against 16 businesses and 114 individual sales agents who had sold the bogus investments.

Several other states took administrative action in the form of cease and desist orders or other sanctions against FinFed/American Benefits, Brandau, Levy, and local agents who sold investments for them. These states included Colorado, Indiana, Michigan, Missouri, Nevada, Ohio, and Tennessee.

In Texas a criminal case was filed in Tarrant County in which five people were indicted on 15 charges of violating the Texas Securities Act for sales of unregistered securities, and sale of securities by unregistered agents. The defendants included Levy's daughter, Ronalee Orlick (who was reportedly involved in running American Benefits, but wasn't charged in the federal case), Ihor A. Gary Humesy (president of US Investors Group of Clearwater, Florida, an investment marketing company), Montgomery Lee Merrell, the owner of CMI Financial of Fort Worth and a CMI salesperson, Sharon Jane Hutchinson. Hutchinson was convicted and sentenced to nine years in prison. Merrell reportedly became a fugitive.

According to information in Texas State Securities Board records, another defendant in the Tarrant County case, Kenneth Dale Ledford, the principal of an Arlington, Texas company called Cornerstone Financial, pleaded guilty to four counts of securities law violations in connection with his sales of FinFed/American Benefits investments and also for selling bogus certificates of deposit for the Grenada-based Cambridge International Bank and Trust, an entity which was involved in at least one penny stock scam. Ledford was sentenced to 10 years probation and $59,000 restituiton.

Two other Cornerstone Financial associates, Sherry Keisling and H. Bradley Bertrand, were indicted in a separate case in Midland, Texas in August 2000 for sales of some $1.5 million of FinFed/American Benefits investments to Texans, according to Texas State Securities Board records.

Despite several years of efforts by the FinFed/American Benefits bankruptcy trustee to locate and distribute assets, investors still have not recovered a large part of their losses. An attempt by the investors to file a lawsuit against the Florida Department of Insurance for failing to protect them from FinFed/American Benefits was dismissed in 2004.

FINANCIAL CRIME NEWS
FEATURE STORIES December 2004 Page

hope

thanks,

I understand we'll get a percentage ....but why do attorneys come first and come on....what is their "fee". What percentage goes to these guy's I think just wrong if attorney's can collect huge fee's ...I think that perhaps a set fee that we all agree to like .5% of what's collected would be reasonable.

I sometimes wonder who the real thiefs are and as I struggle to find a way to recover and not just crumble ...knowing that others will continue to profit from us ...Ok it's a reality but it such a sad reality for everyone who's been harmed by this scheme and others like it.

I wonder why society doesn't just say screw the lawyers and the judges...forget feeding these creeps 3 square on societies dime...just line them up and pull the trigger...

Then I think some people would think twice before pulling some of these schems...vs he I'll hide the money spend a few years at club fed and then....I'm set for life.

trademan83

Most likely he never turned in any paperwork on any employees to the IRS. 1099 or otherwise. If he told you he would pay the taxes at the end of the year, just another lie. Copies of paychecks from him or "the forex project" might be helpful. He should probably be turned in to the IRS as well for tax fraud.

sara

Hope. Why do you think there are so many not-so-flattering lawyer jokes? Why do you think that maybe these criminal's have weighed the consequences vs. gain and stayed on the dark side? Answer: Because it's worth it. Our system lets the predator win. It's Darwinian....